


Fair's Fair's Fair.

by DilynAliceBlake



Series: Let It Be Enough [2]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: M/M, Magic, Soulmates, not quite necromancy, regrettable decisions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-25 23:56:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7552183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DilynAliceBlake/pseuds/DilynAliceBlake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>THIS WAS HOW THE DEAL WAS ORIGINALLY SUPPOSED TO GO, Y'ALL</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Alexander is alone in a world of absence.  The absence of light, the absence of warmth, the absence of solidity.

  
His world has been like this from the moment Burr died, and he doesn't bat an eye when the things he has been feeling become physical.

  
If anything, it's reassuring, since only a moment ago he was burning a lock of his hair over a blue flamed candle in the middle of his office.

  
There's a moment of intense pain of a kind Hamilton has never dreamt before, and then he is out on the dueling grounds once again.  Burr stands a distance away, frozen in his last moments of life.

  
The hope of seeing him buoys Alexander's mood immensely.

  
" **Why are you here?** " asks a woman who looks too much like his deceased great aunt for comfort.

  
"I came to save him.  I'll pay the price."  He speaks with surety.  There's no room for hesitation, lest he stray from his goal.

  
" **You can't** " says the woman in a bored tone, " **trade your soul to save its mate.** "

  
At first, Alex is incensed, but then he can't help but to be elated.  Aaron may never feel the same way about him, but there's something there that even the king of obfuscation can't deny.  They're tied together, irrevocably and metaphysically; and it's something that can never be taken from Alexander.

  
"Soulmates?" he repeats, in wonder.  Any misconceptions his wife attempted to plant in his mind are gone in less than a blink.  This is right.

 

Prices in bargains like this only ever go up, no matter how you think you're haggling a deal.  Just being here is cutting a fourth of the life he has left away, though, so he might as well be paying for _something_.

  
"How can I save him?"

  
" **You would have to change the course of your lives, starting from the moment your love was realized.** "

  
"Realized?  We never- Oh, you meant literally.  I mean, of course you meant literally.  Obviously."  His wedding's after party then.  There was no time Hamilton's love was as clear as in the crystalline instant when he learned that Aaron's heart belonged to Theodosia.  The jealousy had been nigh unbearable.

  
" **The price would be your life, rather than your soul.** "

  
"Yes-"

  
" _ **And!**_ **A love of equal measure.** "

  
There was no love in Alexander's long life that could bring the same depth of feeling, he was certain; but if that were true, then why would the offer have been made?

  
"My answer stands," Hamilton insists.

  
" **Go then.  You know what to do.** "

  
He does.  Three drops of blood on Aaron's tongue, that's all it will take.  He isn't in the physical world, but the cut nipped into his thumb hurts as if he were.  


  
"One, to change our past," he says, and his stomach drops to his feet when in his minds eye he watches Laurens death.

  
"T-Two, to change the present," Hamilton continues, because he's come too far to give up now.  He nearly jerks his hand back when he sees the vision of Eliza weeping over Phillip's grave.

  
He bites his tongue, to keep from voicing his horror.  He had known, agreeing, that the price would be steep.  Had been told that nothing less than a love equal in strength could be traded.  This has to be finished.

  
"Three, to change the _future_ ," he says, watching the last drop splash crimson onto Burr's bottom lip.  He'll see that as it happens, a spectre chained to Burr until they can both move on.  It's the part of this damnable deal that he's most looking forward to.

  
" **Seal it with a kiss** ," hisses the voice behind him, and Alexander flinches.  It's corrupt and nearly repulsive, that he would have to pay three lives to finally kiss Burr, one of them his own.  It's almost laughable, in a hysterically distant way, that even after all that, Aaron won't even be aware for it.  Will never know what transpired.

  
" _Forgive me_ ," he whispers to Burr, and with a kiss it's over, the deal is done.  Time on the dueling grounds resumes.


	2. Chapter 2

Between one blink and the next, an age seems to pass.  Burr's gun goes off as he attempts to raise it towards the sky, and never has he felt so betrayed by an inanimate object.

  
" _Wait!_ " he yells, and his tongue tastes like blood.

  
"Please, I have to see him; I need to talk to Hamilton!"  Struggling forward against the resistance of his Second, he sees the distinctive cut across Hamilton's thumb.  One that, he is certain, hadn't been there earlier.

  
He lets himself be dragged away.


	3. Chapter 3

Aaron goes to get a drink and ruminate over the turn his life has just taken.

Firstly, over the fact that Hamilton was now dead.  That...had never been the end goal.  Which made what the man had _done_ all the more infuriating.

That brought Burr to his second point of consideration:  Why the fuck had Alexander done _any_ of that?  Why the creepy deal?

Even before looking at the weird shadow person like it'd offered him life instead of death, saying _that_ term, Hamilton had been willing to change how their duel had happened.  To say nothing of the other part.

Alexander had _kissed_ him!

 _Why_ had Alexander kissed him?

Was it just a necessary part of those strange magics?  If so, why apologize for _that_ part, of all the weirdly invasive decisions made without Aaron's consent?

There were only two options, and both of them had Aaron ordering another drink.

One; Alex was using the modicum of sense he had, (a minute amount, to be sure), to think about how Aaron would feel having the chance to kiss him only under such forced circumstances.  Burr was certainly going to be miserable, looking back on it for the rest of his life.  Still, Aaron wished Hamilton had picked an earlier time to consider his feelings.  Like, say, before condemning himself to death in the first place.

Two-

Two wasn't an idea that the dark skinned man wanted to let slither into his mind.

Option two; Alexander didn't know about Aaron's feelings, and was apologizing for the kiss because he was under the impression that he would object morally.  It was the opposite of laughable, because it meant that Hamilton hadn't been politely ignoring Burr's desire for him; he was genuinely unaware.

Not only did that mean that Aaron had missed a shot, it meant he'd misread all those angry letters.

"Burr has no beliefs," had not, after all, been a pointed remark about the grandson of a preacher falling in love with a married _man_.  The avoidance of naming the precise quarrel had not been Hamilton mocking Burr by refusing to confront the elephant in the room.  There hadn't _been_ an elephant.

The entire duel had been a mistake.  A grave misunderstanding indeed.

 


End file.
